


Cheater Cheater

by Kitt_Monroe



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Angst, Gen, Spoilers for basically the entire game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 14:02:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1781650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitt_Monroe/pseuds/Kitt_Monroe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nanami is smart. But being smart doesn't always help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cheater Cheater

It wasn't her fault she was smarter than them. It wasn't like she could help it, really--any more than Togami could help being richer than any of the others, or Komaeda could help being more lucky, or Mioda could help being a better singer.

But...those weren't fair comparisons, were they? Those qualities of her classmates, they were qualities they possessed--and deserved, to be fair--because of their talents. Of course Souda had a more enterprising and technical mind, because he _was_ a mechanic. It made sense Saionji was more graceful--she was a classical dancer. It made sense. Those qualities fit perfectly with their talents.

She was a gamer, so she was smarter than everyone else? Not so much of a correlation, really. Sure, there was supposedly research indicating that gaming increased reaction times and puzzle-solving skills, and...some other stuff, probably. But she knew it wasn't really why she was smarter than them.

Chiaki Nanami, schooling the world on video gaming since March 14 of '96. Didn't exactly summon an image of a teenager who was especially more brilliant than her friends, did it?

But there it was. And she couldn't help being brighter than them, always coming to conclusions faster than them, knowing more than them about everything. It was just how she operated.

Functioned, if you will.

Some of the others frequently expressed their admiration and/or confusion that she seemed so much quicker to figure things out than almost all of them (except maybe Hinata, but he was like a genius or something so). In fact, some of them had privately told her, generally as a joke, that she must be cheating or something during the trials.

"Chiaki-chan, you must have rigged the trial somehow," Koizumi had playfully scolded her the morning after the trial for Togami's murder. Well, playful as a person could be immediately following such a morbid event. "I _have_ to know your secrets for the next trial."

Of course Koizumi didn't make it to the next trial but that wasn't the point.

"You gotta be screwing around with something, Nanami," Souda had mused as they filed into the elevator after Pekoyama's execution. "It's like, you and Hinata are doin' all the work like you know something we don't."

"You must be cheating somehow," Komaeda had informed her one morning when they were the first two to show up at the hotel restaurant. "I mean, with _my_ Super High-school Level Good Luck, _I_ should be the one who figures things out, y'know?"

"You figure out more than your share of things," Nanami had replied without even looking at him.

"But not _everything,_ " Komaeda complained, twirling a strand of his hair until it was so tight he ended up pulling a few of his hairs out. "See, I should be deducing _everything._ Well, me and Hinata-kun. But you keep saying things at the trials too, and during our normal discussions. So what are you doing?"

She was honestly amazed that he could be so stupid. How, exactly, could she possibly be cheating? How would someone _cheat_ in order to solve mysteries? That's why they're _mysteries._

"Are you just trying to impress us?" Komaeda went on. "Or maybe just one person? Are you trying to impress Hinata-kun? I notice you speak with him a lot."

It was times like that Nanami wished Komaeda hadn't felt that weird compulsion to reveal to all of them during that first trial that he was in reality an enormous jackass. Sure, he would have been showing them a personality that wasn't really his the entire time they knew him, but that had to be better than the incomprehensibly trying task of being in the same room as him now.

"Because, if you _are_ trying to impress Hinata-kun," Komaeda continued, "then I have some urgent news for you, Nanami-san."

"And that is?" Nanami asked.

"Hinata-kun is _my_ friend," Komaeda told her with a wide-open smile. "So he can't be yours, can he? No, that wouldn't make sense."

That was only one of so many times her intelligence was...questioned, maybe? Like it wasn't actually legitimate because nobody _really_ had that level of problem-solving skills, that kind of critical thinking ability. So apparently, she always had to be "cheating" or "trying to impress someone" if she was ever being smart. Or even useful.

Maybe it _did_ have to do with her talent. Since being smart wasn't necessarily part of being a gamer, they all assumed it wasn't really a relevant part of her. Which didn't make much sense, but Super High-school Level talents were something they all took seriously, so maybe her classmates really just wanted to see her as that one token gamer girl in every group of friends, and they didn't want her to be anything else.

Hinata seemed to notice her other qualities, but that was probably because he had no means of judging her. He didn't have a talent of his own, so he didn't carry that kind of prejudice (for lack of a better term) that made the others so prone to profiling by talent.

Maybe if they had ever gotten the chance to get to know each other better, this wouldn't happen. If they became an actual group of actual friends instead of just a bunch of people scrambling not to be killed, they would notice things about each other. They would have noticed that Kuzuryuu and Pekoyama had an obviously external bond that transcended their school situation, they would have noticed Tanaka was obviously just a normal kid who liked animals and pretended to have hamster gods to protect himself, they would notice Tsumiki was clearly a little disturbed and that her transition to a ruthless and insane murderer should have been a foregone conclusion--

And they would notice Nanami had her own reasons for her intelligence.

They would notice why she could never tell them who or what she really was.

Maybe it was better that they had to be dragged to the realization. Maybe it was better that there were only five of them still alive when they learned. It gave her the chance to look at each of them personally and give her thanks for their help and apologies for what she had done--she didn't think she could've handled telling all fifteen of them.

It was different, of course, when the others' lives were at stake. Of _course_ she would tell them who she was if their lives depended on it. Maybe they didn't think so, but their safety had always been first and foremost in her mind.

So when Komaeda made his bomb threat (read: finally went straight off the deep end), she had a decision to make. She could tell them, and then they would hate her, or she could _not_ tell them, and they would _die._ Never a fun decision.

She would probably have told them soon enough, as soon as it became clear they were never going to find the bombs. Dying wasn't something she was quite prepared to do yet, and letting them die was certainly not going to happen.

But it wasn't like she didn't breathe out the world's longest sigh of relief when Monomi came to tell her the news. Apparently Sonia had had one of those ridiculous ideas that actually turn out to be great ideas, and the princess had chucked a few of Komaeda's supposed "bombs" at the old ruins on the second island. Turned out they were fireworks.

Fireworks.

Christ.

So Nanami hadn't had to worry about them finding out just yet, about who she was and what she was still busy doing to them.

Of course Komaeda couldn't deal with that.

No, Komaeda needed revenge.

So here they were. At the trial for Komaeda's murder, about half an hour in, and there was that awful look on Hinata's face. That look like what the hell did you do.

It wasn't a look she liked to see, but she sort of deserved it at this point. She kind of had to deal with it, as only the first of a couple of punishments she would be dealt over the next few minutes (not the least painful of course would be dealt her by Monobear, and she had the sneaking suspicion he was going to toss some ironic game-related execution at her, and _that_ was a terrifying thought). Because there she was, all along. It was like the plot of every romantic comedy--the heroine discovers the right person for her was right there the whole time and it's cheesy but you love it--except this time it wasn't love they had discovered, it was a traitor.

A horrid, unsalvageable monster who had been betraying them from the beginning.

She sincerely hoped none of them had known already. Because if they had already known it was her, and they just weren't telling her they knew, then she would have to seriously kick their asses.

Once she was over the stabbing pain she felt in her chest at seeing Hinata look at her like that, she had time to see what the others were thinking. Time, of course, which was afforded her because everyone else was just as speechless as Hinata was. Sonia's face had gone a little blue, and there were almost unnoticeable tears in her eyes. Kuzuryuu's eyes were wide open, and his mouth hung open a couple centimeters. Souda was tugging at his hat, his eyes travelling in all directions in an attempt to process what he and the others were learning. Owari looked the least affected at first glance, but Nanami could tell she was chewing on the inside of her bottom lip as if trying to eat her own mouth.

Hinata was the only one, however, who seemed capable of looking at her. "Nanami, you were the traitor...?" he mumbled, his cheeks twitching, and he may also have meant to cry, but Nanami could tell he wasn't going to let himself do that. His face showed all the signs as if he had been crying already, however: his nose and cheeks glowed slightly red, and when he swallowed it looked difficult.

And what could she do? It wasn't like she deserved to pity herself in this situation, because she had _caused_ the situation. It wasn't like she could let it be known how obvious her guilt should have been, because that would be a) callous and b) extremely shitty. And she really had no excuses here, so the only thing she could do was accept her guilt and try to lift their spirits as much as was possible. So, even though the smile was a bullshit smile, and she had to restrain the hand on her heart from digging into her chest and injuring her, she had to keep telling them thank you, and congratulations because you guys did a wonderful job, and it's okay for you to vote me as the murderer now.

In the grand scheme of things, it might have helped if she wasn't so much smarter than them. She wouldn't have been useful to the Future Foundation that way, and she wouldn't have had to stab all of them in the back the way she had.

After all, Komaeda was luckier than she was smart. She might have seen it coming, seen it coming how Komaeda would keep on trying to trap her until he succeeded, but she thought she was too smart to fall for that. Probably, if she hadn't put so much stock in how smart she was, it would have been clearer that the whole time, Komaeda was just playing them. Screwing them so he could have the last laugh even after he was already dead.

It was just a game to him, and despite her Super High-school Level Gamer status, she had lost.

She lost because, despite her constant reassurance otherwise, she cheated.


End file.
